It was July of 1969, a Saturday,the Apollo 11 was heading for the moon, I had played in a baseball tournament in some hick town I still hate for various reasons, and my Dad and I were on the way home when the announcement came on the radio. Senator Ted Kennedy had been in a car accident that had resulted in a young woman's death to which my Dad said, well he's through in a tone that said to me wonderful Nixon is going to be re-elected. You see my Dad hated Nixon way before it was mandatory.
Chappaquiddick the movie came out this weekend. The trailers looked awful. It looked to me like some sort of Dinesh D'Souza hit job. It looked like it was made by the fucking Breitbart maniacs. So lets just say I expected to be appalled and maybe angered. Yes, I have a real life bias FOR the Kennedys and I wont apologize for it.
Chappaquiddick stars Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty, Mudbound) as Ted Kennedy. Clarke is an appealing actor from way back when he starred in Chicago Code on TV and plays Kennedy as a confused, sort of dim witted party boy with a real sense of entitlement. Kate Mara plays the ill fated Mary Jo Kopechne as a true believer in the Kennedy agenda, one of the "Boiler Room Girls" who had been set adrift after the death of Bobby the year before. Damn, Kate Mara keeps getting killed by politicians.
One night, Kennedy takes a drive with Mary Jo and drives off the bridge into the water because he was texting (no not really) and Mary Jo drowns. Everybody knows this part.
The rest of the story is this movie. The cover up, the indifference to a young woman's death, the family muscle coming up with a plausible story, the victimization of Teddy, the horror that was Joseph Kennedy's parenting, the police ineptness and eventually the voters who, yes I admit it, much like Trumpers. dismissed this event as meaningless due to the charisma of this family.
The movie is interesting, its ultimately satisfying, but man does it move at a snail's pace. The energy that this movie could have had is not even existent. I mean there are maybe three moments that evoke any sort of energy at all. Kate Mara's Mary Jo gasping for air in the back of the car calling for Teddy to save her while he sits on the bank of the bay figuring out how to proceed, Joan Kennedy's reaction to Teddy thanking her for attending Mary Jo's funeral (its the best line in the movie) and Bruce Dern's Joe Kennedy slapping Teddy and telling him he would never be great. Other than that, its a sleep walking low energy 110 minutes.
The performance are good by people you wouldn't necessarily associate with this kind of movie. Ed Helms is great as the moral compass of a pretty morals lacking band of brothers. His Joe Gargan (a Kennedy cousin) is spot on. Jim Gaffigan as a flunky federal attorney hanger on (nice skivvies Jim)
So see this movie if you must. It wont make you like Teddy Kennedy much. It will reinforce your negativity if you already hate a dead man. If you admired Teddy as I do, you will go well yeah that was pretty fucked up.
Ultimately the movie is about an event in a tortured man's life that probably should have resulted in his path to irrelevance. It basically did, as the Presidency was the only way he lives up to his family expectations. He of course ran a lackluster 1980 campaign for President in which he never could explain why he wanted to win. He lost. He never ran again and stayed a Senator. The Lion of the Senate to be exact.
I would equate this movie to that 1980 campaign. Yeah it had to be done, but man was it a slow, half assed road to nowhere.
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